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Catherine's Kitchen

Catherine Manning

Birds are amazing and clever. Since I've been up here, I've fed the birds, like I did at home. So now I must have a hundred coming for food and they know when to come as well. They know when I feed the turtles in the morning and when I feed the dogs and the turtles in the afternoon. They also know when I scrape the saucepan I use for the dogs, as they will get rice scraps, sometimes I think they're going to land on my head. They are really quite tame and don't rush to fly away when I move around. Also I have pans of water for the turtles which the birds bathe in, so I have to keep refilling.

We don't have a large number of species of birds in Barbados as we don't have the vegetation like the other islands, at least not generally, though there are areas that have several different species. However, here I have blackbirds, sparrows, rain birds, swallows, finches, yellow breasts, hummingbirds and the odd budgie might pay a visit. The budgies are usually from captivity, but a cousin of mine who lives about two miles away as the crow flies has a large number of budgies and lovebirds, who fly around during the day and go home at night to nest, so I guess they stray sometimes. Doves as well, wood doves and ground doves and when I have the sprinkler going they love to sit under it and lift their wings to cool off.

My favourites are the finches as they are tiny and busy and guess they are in my face a lot, as they seem to have no fear and are in and out of the house. I think this started when one of the babies got lost and flew into the garage, first to get stalked by the cats and then by the dogs. I had to shut them all out and let the parents persuade the baby to get out and then the same thing happened in the house, eventually I had to give the baby a little shove with a broom to get it outside. After that, things were fine, it learned how to fly.

But since then, this married couple has decided to build a nest in one of my hanging plants in the living room and no amount of dissuasion on my part will stop them. They have been busy in and out and have built the nest in two days. The amazing thing is, they work 8am-4pm! No lie, I have watched them and they start when I open the doors in the morning and stop around four in the afternoon. What will happen when the egg is laid remains to be seen, guess I will have to leave a window open for the father to visit!

When the baby starts to fly is another story, just hope I'm around and the dogs have got accustomed to having the birds around the house. I noticed today that the female is beginning to nest and the male visits sometimes, but obviously not often enough as she calls a lot, but he does not always come, just answers from outside. How human, typical male! It will be interesting to see if he relieves her after the egg is laid. Update later I hope!

I want to surprise everyone and get this column off early for once, so must finish now. Hope I can keep it up in the future or I might miss the boat! Surprised I haven't done that already.

We are in the middle of a drought, no proper rain for months so everything is parched and dust flies if I try to cut the grass, which is really only cutting grass seed, which has grown up. Hope we get some rain soon, which doesn't wash us away in one downpour, which happens too often.

Mangoes are now in season and seem to be plentiful, unlike last year, so I'm stocking up as much as I can for jam and chutney. So far the ones that I've been able to get are only suitable for jam as they are cooking too soft for chutney.
 

Easy Mango Jam This is a general recipe open to adjustment, except for the 2-1 rule. Serves 6. 4 cups chopped ripe mango pulp 2 Tbs. lime juice (or lemon) 5 cups granulated sugar 1 Box pectin granules 1 tsp. butter Place mango pulp in a saucepan with very little water, bring to boil, lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Add lime juice and pectin and bring to boil, stirring so it doesn't burn. Boil for a minute or two and then add the sugar, stir to dissolve and bring back to the boil. Boil hard for one minute, add butter and take off heat. Stir well till any froth is absorbed and bottle in sterilized jars. I prefer to use pectin as I find that boiling jam to setting point causes the jam to lose flavour as well as taking longer. Sometimes if the fruit is watery, like melon, I'll add more pectin, but that can be expensive. This morning was my market morning so I was up at 4am. It was good and everything sold except for one lemon meringue pie, which was obviously dropped from a great height, so I'm tired and tonight is hopefully an early night. I enjoy it, as even though it's early it's becoming a social occasion. I put out my stuff and leave it to the others to sell. I then get everything I want and also buy my daughter's veggies for the week and since we have a coffee machine, I have my weekly cup of coffee and a gossip. It's become a gathering point and new faces appear every week. And a good snack with coffee is: BANANA SQUARES   4 ozs. Margarine or butter 2 cups all purpose flour 1-1/2 cups sugar 1 tsp. salt 1 cup sour cream 1 tsp. baking soda 2 eggs 1/2 cup toasted chopped nuts 3 1-1/2 cups mashed bananas 2 tsp. vanilla essence Butter Frosting 1/4 cup margarine or butter melted until brown. Mix in 2 cups of icing sugar and beat in 1 tsp. vanilla and 3 Tbs. milk until smooth and of spreading consistency. Heat oven to 375F and grease pan 15-1/2" x 10-1/2". Mix margarine, sugar, sour cream and eggs in large mixing bowl till smooth. Blend in flour mixture and stir in nuts... Spread mixture in pan and smooth. Bake approximately 20-25 minutes until light brown and tester comes out clean. Cool and frost. Cut into squares and serve.

Bon Appetit!
Cath